By Andy Gilbert and the Our Newhaven Team

Our Newhaven celebrated its 10th anniversary by holding an all-day event at Paradise Park in Newhaven on Saturday 14th October.

Team members Carol Walton, John Hills and Andy Gilbert were on hand all day and there was a constant flow of visitors to the exhibit. They were able to view the Powerpoint slideshows, look through the albums and read about the life story of the harbour tug "Meeching". There was also live access to the Our Newhaven website and the team were quickly able to find web pages and images for visitors who asked "Do you have anything on the site about......" Most importantly, visitors were able to bring in photos and slides for scanning and inclusion on the site, and relate many stories and tales about the town's history and its characters. Well over a hundred images were scanned on the day, and a large collection of photos was donated to the group for scanning in the near future. These will all appear on the website in the coming weeks and months.

The event was visited by Newhaven's Mayor, Mrs June Dyer, who stayed for some time chatting with the team. Mrs Dyer's father was Chief Engineer of the tug "Meeching" and as Andy Gilbert's father was Captain at the same time, some old memories were exchanged! Another early visitor to the exhibit also served as the tug's Chief Engineer so there were were more tales to tell.

Paradise Park's Sales Director Mark Gilbert brought in a whole collection of photos of the construction of Paradise Park (or Garden Paradise as it was originally called) in the late 1980s.

It was amazing to see just how many times you could say "It's a small world.", as there were numerous occasions where faces were seen in photos, or names were mentioned, bringing responses such as "I went to school with him" or "They were my next door neighbours." That's what Our Newhaven is all about!

All in all, this was Our Newhaven's most successful event ever and the team would like to extend their thanks to Mark Gilbert and Paradise Park for hosting them, and to all those who visited and brought in photos.

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